Building near Brightline
Fort Lauderdale site would add office, retail space near commuter rail
Florida East Coast Industries wants to build a commercial tower in Fort Lauderdale near the train station.
FORT LAUDERDALE — Florida East Coast Industries, the corporate parent of the Brightline rail system, wants to build a 14-story commercial tower in Fort Lauderdale near the train station, serving up new office space options for companies that want to locate downtown.
The tower project, which still requires city approvals, would offer 175,000 square feet of office space across seven floors, parking and 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, according to the CB Richard Ellis real estate services firm, which was hired by FECI to start finding tenants.
The proposed development is located at 101 NW Third Ave. The station is at Northwest Second Avenue and First Street. Both are on the west side of the rail line north of Broward Boulevard.
No official development application has been submitted, and a preliminary meeting by a city review panel has not been conducted. In the plans that the city approved for the Brightline station, the location is listed as a “future phase” of the project.
The location offers potential tenants, such as law firms and technology companies, a chance to attract professional talent from all three major counties in South Florida, said CB Richard Ellis Senior Vice President Christopher Gallagher in an interview.
“If you’re looking for a large contiguous block of space for a major corporation, this is probably the only major opportunity besides the new Stiles 201 Las Olas project,” he said.
“It’s about being part of the train-oriented development which moves people from West Palm Beach to Miami within a 30-minute time frame,” he added. “You can attract talent from West Palm to Miami. Talent is hard to find.”
Until CBRE issued a news release about its hiring on Monday, few people had ever heard of 101 Fort Lauderdale. Gallagher forecast that it could be ready for occupancy by 2020.
Disclosure of the project comes amid discussions by Fort Lauderdale and Broward County officials about developing a combined government campus in or near the station’s neighborhood. Its buildings would house work space for city and county commissioners and professional staff. A new federal courthouse has also been discussed as part of the equation.
Before Brightline’s startup of train service among the cities of West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, large numbers of commercial and residential developments have arisen within short distances of each downtown rail station.
Voice and email messages left at Florida East Coast Industries’ headquarters in Coral Gables were not returned.
In the CBRE statement, Florida East Coast CFO Bruce Snyder is
quoted as suggesting the Fort Lauderdale project was inspired by growing office space demand at the company’s MiamiCentral complex in downtown Miami, which anchors Brightline’s southern end point.
“The incredible success with 2 and 3 MiamiCentral is evidence of the robust demand for office space near transportation hubs in South Florida’s urban cores,” Snyder said. “Building on this momentum, we are providing a new access point into Broward County as we bring this highly transit-centric office building that will help cement Fort Lauderdale’s reputation as the City of Tomorrow.”